Cod Almighty | Diary

Diary - Monday 17 December 2012

17 December 2012

Miss Guest Diary writes: Well, Town are through to the third round of the FA Trophy and, as with last season, it's left me with mixed feelings. Yes, it's good to win; to claim the prize money; to have the prospect of a trip to Wembley. But progression also means rearranging league fixtures. The Saturday game at Nuneaton on 12 January will now have to be played in midweek, turning what would have been a definite trip for me into only a possibility. And the same will apply to the game at Cambridge later in January if Town progress further.

Then there's the possibility of injuries and suspensions picked up by players in the trophy games affecting Town's promotion chances. In a small way it has given me an insight into why the 'big' clubs in the Premiership seem to disrespect the domestic cup competitions - Town are, after all, one of the big fish in the non-League pool.

After reading about Havant's giant-killing exploits in the FA Cup five years ago and remembering the doggedness of Buxton in the previous round, I was prepared for a bore-draw at best on Saturday. But I needn't have worried. From the moment Shaun Pearson's head connected with the ball in the second minute, the result was never in doubt. Andy Cook looked particularly good, as did Sam Hatton when going forward, but that's not saying a lot against surprisingly poor opposition. It is hard to believe Havant are only one division below Town - they certainly looked a lot worse than Buxton.

Unfortunately, the tannoy operator was in full-on cliché mode, playing Carmina Burana as the teams ran out. I also heard some ghastly goal celebration music. I don't know whether this was a return or whether it was simply that I could hear it on Saturday because the crowd was quite small. As I stopped taking any notice of chart music in about 1982, I will have to rely on the word of this rather good blog by a Havant fan to report that the song played was 'Chelsea Dagger'.

Town will face Welling United away in the next round of the trophy. Welling are currently second in the Conference South and have already beaten Newport County and Woking in earlier rounds of the trophy. Hmm, I won't rule out that Saturday trip to Cambridge just yet.

While trawling the NSNOS earlier today, I saw that the ticket news for the Mansfield game on 29 December is that there are no tickets. In other words, it's turn up and pay on the gate. Tickets are also now on sale for the home game against Lincoln on New Year's Day. Buried within that announcement is a call for fans to wear black and white Santa hats and beards to the Wrexham game this Friday, plus 48 people to come dressed in full black and white Santa suits. I can't quite decide whether I find this rather naff initiative endearing or ridiculous.

Look out for this month's edition of FourFourTwo magazine, which has an interesting article about our current management duo, entitled 'The Shouty and Shorty Show'. The only disappointment is that the article does not acknowledge these soubriquets were coined by Cod Almighty's original diarist. Talking of names, check out this round-up of excruciating band names from 2012 as reported to the A V Club website. My particular favourite is Thus: Owls.